Causal
Explanation of Social Action: The Contribution of Max Weber
and of Critical Realism to a Generative View of Causal Explanation in
Social Science

By MATS EKSTROM

Department
of Sociology
University
of Orebro, Sweden

Causal
explanations of social actions are central to modern as well as to
classic sociology. Even in its revised form, the most influential
causal theory--the covering law theory--has not proved particularly
fruitful for the study of social action. But there are alternative
and potentially more fruitful theories. This article presents Weber's
methodology and critical realism as two different contributions to a
generative view of causality in social science which both try to
transcend the protracted controversy between a hermeneutic
interpretive sociology and a positivistic causal-explanatory
sociology. From the generative standpoint, causal explanations are
directed not towards the production of empirical correlations between
variables or towards the making of predictions on the basis of
empirical laws, but towards the uncovering of causal properties and
the processes whereby social actions arise out of the complex
interaction of internally related mental dispositions, meanings,
intentions, social contexts and structures.

1.
Introduction
Common
to a great deal of modern as well as classical sociological
theorizing is a focus on explanations of social actions. In a recent
article in Acta Sociologica, Therborn writes: 'Sociological
theorizing is likely to change dramatically in the near future,
moving from focusing on conceptualization onto explanation'
(1991:177). That the basic aim of sociological theorization (and
conceptualization) should be to contribute to an explanatory
science is a notion which Therborn would appear to share with the
majority of modern theorists. Giddens (1984:346, my emphasis), for
example, writes: 'Now, it can be accepted that all abstract
generalizations in the social sciences are, explicitly or implicitly, causal
statements'. In an article about sociological analytical
theorizing, Turner (1987) argues that sociological theorization must
focus on causality in terms of abstract processes and operative
mechanisms. Concerning Bourdieu's habitus theory, Broady writes
(1990:232, translation and emphasis my own): 'Its purpose is to push
in an explanatory link between the social circumstances and
the behaviour of individuals.'

But
what are the scientific-theoretical and methodological foundations
of a causally explanatory sociology? The import and applicability of
causal explanation, and its relation to other types of explanation
and to understanding (Verstehen)--these are among the most central
topics when it comes to the discussion of the methodology of social
science in general, and the study of social intentional actions in
particular. One can thereby distinguish at least four different
positions that have been taken up with regard to these topics (cf.
Lloyd 1986:8). First, there is the idea that, unlike in natural
science, the endeavour in social science should not he directed
towards causal explanation but towards the understanding and/or
rationalization of social

[end
of page 107]

actions
in relation to intentions, meanings, and sociocultural contexts.
Second, there is the idea that social science should indeed strive
for causal explanation, but that such explanation should have a
particular structure and should be arrived at by way of particular
methods. Third, there is a positivist naturalism that asserts the
general applicability of the empiricist concept of causality in both
natural and social science (albeit in a somewhat modified form in the
case of the latter). Fourth, and last, there is an anti-positivist
naturalism that questions the empiricist concept of causality and
advocates a unified science of causal explanation resting on another
foundation. In the debate about explanation of social action, there
has long been recurrent controversy between, chiefly, the first and
third of the above positions.

The
most widely accepted specification of causality--the empiricist
theory--was originally formulated by David Hume (Hume 1966; see also
e.g. Stroud 1977). Causality is regarded as a matter of empirical regularities.
Causal conclusions are assumed to be based on the observation of how
a certain event is followed again and again by a certain other event,
not on knowledge of causal mechanisms and the generative properties
of things. To the empiricist view the relation between cause and
effect is an external one. Cause and effect are regarded as separate
and independent objects, i.e. objects that do not depend on one
another for their constitution. This relation of independence becomes
a central criterion of causality.

Characteristic
of the deductive-nomological explanatory model (or the 'covering law
model') that has been developed within modern positivism is that
explanations of individual events or actions are derived from one or
more laws (or law-like formulations). These laws express universal
empirical correlations, usually formulated in terms of probability.
Thus, according to this notion the validity of causal explanations
depends on their capacity to predict empirical courses of events (see
e.g. Hempel (1965) and, for a brief survey, e.g., Johansson &
Liedman (1987), Keat & Urry (1975)). The fact that empiricism and
positivism have exerted such a strong influence has meant that the
matter of causality and social actions has primarily become a
question, first, of whether intentions and actions can be regarded as
independent, i.e. externally related, and, second, of whether social
actions can be explained and predicted with the aid of empirical laws
(see e.g. the debate concerning 'the philosophy of action', Marc-Wogau
1980; von Wright 1971; see furthermore the debate in Scandinavian
social science, e.g. Osterberg 1989). A central aspect of the latter
question is, third, whether explanations are to be derived from
directly observable patterns of events and of action, or whether--and
if so, how--a science of social actions shall seek to expose not
directly observable causal mechanisms.[1]

It
is unlikely that many present-day Scandinavian sociologists would
describe themselves as adherents of the out-and-out empiricist notion
of causality, or as adherents of the positivist covering law theory.
In practice, however, the type of variable-oriented research that
seeks causal explanations chiefly through studying empirical
correlations between a few externally related variables is anything
but uncommon. Partly in controversy with this mode of research, many
have become adherents of an interpretive sociology that questions the
very possibility of finding causal explanations for social actions.
The representatives of this attitude often equate causality with the
empiricist and positivist theory, as can be illustrated by the
following quotation from Osterberg:

...
I shall be arguing ... that the principal task of sociology is to interpret
what happens between people in this field of action. Interpretation
is to be understood here as sonmething else than causal explanation
and/or causal-functional explanation.... What happens in social life
cannot be causally explained on the basis of sociological laws ...
which would enable us also to deduce what will happen in the future./
... / Descriptions of reasons, motives and intentions have the
purpose of making our understanding of the behaviour both of others
and of ourselves as deep. as is desirable or requisite in the
situation (Osterberg 1989:9 and 23; translation and emphasis my own).

In
modern sociological theorizing this polarizing starting-point seems
at the same

[end
of page 108]

time
to be regarded as unfruitful (see e.g. Giddens 1984; Turner 1987).
The dismissal of the empiricist and positivist notion does not
necessarily imply a questioning of the causal-explanatory ambition in
itself--quite the opposite. Giddens, for example, starts from the following:

That
there are no known universal laws in social science is not just
happenstance. If it is correct to say, as I have argued, that the
causal mechanisms in social scientific generalizations depend upon
actors' reasons, in the context of a 'mesh' of intended and
unintended consequences of actions, we can readily see why such
generalizations do not have a universal form. . . . I propose simply
to declare that reasons are causes, accepting that this no doubt
implies a non-Humean account of causality (Giddens 1984:345).

The
purpose of the present article is to bring to the fore, and to
indicate the contrast between, Weber's perspective on causality and
that of the critical realists. Weber represents the second of the
above positions, while the critical realists--or at least certain of
them--represent the fourth. It may be questioned whether it is
fruitful to present these two side by side. Certainly the
contributions of (on the one hand) Weber and (on the other) the
critical realists are of different character, were produced in
different contexts and had different intentions behind them.[2]
It is not, though, my intention in this article to carry out a
comparative analysis in terms of the philosophy of science or the
history of ideas, or to present a unique interpretation of the
scholars. The intention is instead to bring to the fore Weber and
critical realism as representatives of important (and at least
in Scandinavian sociology underestimated) perspectives regarding
causal explanations of social action. At the same time as there are a
number of essential differences between these perspectives, they have
in common that they develop generative views of causality, explicitly
as attempts to overcome the contemporary polarization between
positivism and hermeneutics.[3]

The
interpretation and presentation of Weber's methodology has to a
large extent been affected by the tendency towards polarization in
the discussion concerning methodology in the social sciences. Many
have regarded him chiefly as a representative of the anti-positivist
side in the controversies between understanding and causal
explanation, and between qualitative and quantitative methods. By and
large, Weber is most often presented as a 'verstehen sociologist', at
the same time as his development of the concept of causality is
either ignored or just mentioned in passing (see e.g. Herva 1988). He
has been used--as Eliaeson ( 1982) puts it--as a 'stick with which to
beat opponents' in 'the verstehen/ erklaren debate' (p. 22,
translation my own). In Swedish sociology the picture of Weber has
been in part coloured by the long drawn-out'soft data debate', where
he has been cited as a representative of a 'soft data sociology'
(Johansson 1966) or a 'qualitative sociology' (Hughes & Mansson 1988).

Sociology
(in the sense in which this highly ambiguous word is used here) is a
science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of
social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its
course and consequences (Weber 1978:4. my emphasis).

This
oft-quoted introduction to the first part of Economy and Society--a
part devoted to a methodological and ontological definition of the
object of sociological investigations--illustrates the fact that
Weber did not regard understanding and causal explanation as distinct
or opposed activities, but as two essential and integrated parts of
one and the same methodology. The formulation of a Verstehende Soziologi
involved the conviction that all meaningful human actions can be
causally explained (Ilekman 1979; Keat & Urry 1975; Salomon 1934;
Turner 1986). This comes out both in the explicitly methodological
writings and in the empirical studies.

[end
of page 109]

The
integrated perspective involves interpretive understanding as a
crucial prerequisite for causal explanation in history and social
science: it is required on the one hand for elucidating the social
and cultural meaning of what is to be causally explained, and on the
other hand for attaining knowledge of the processes that connect
cause and effect. At the same time causal analysis is a prerequisite
for the understanding of the cultural significance, distinctive
character, interrelationship and historical foundation of different
phenomena. A further expression of the integrated perspective is the
fact that Weber in certain cases treats the concepts of understanding
and explanation as virtually synonymous (see e.g. Weber 1949:72, 77
& 79; 1975:149; see also Aron 1974; Giddens 1977; Salomon 1934).

In
the light of this there would seem to be little point in
attempting--as others have done--to determine whether it is to
understanding or to explanation that Weber assigns priority. In two
Swedish theses we find conflicting conclusions regarding Weber's
position. Eliaeson writes: 'But this interpretation to the effect
that understanding has pride of place would seem less plausible than
its opposite: that one explains through understanding, which is to
say that the act of understanding is an indispensable but
insufficient step on the path to explanation' (Eliaeson 1982:101; my
translation). Coniavitis, on the. other hand, writes: 'The conviction
that "meaning" has priority over "cause" remained
with Weber throughout his life. Causality is for him a stage in the
interpretive process' (Coniavitis 1977:100; my translation). The way
I understand it, the important part of Weber's contribution is that
he (as we shall see) looks upon meanings as causes.

2.2
Causality and intentionality

Weber's
chief interest, both as a historian and as a sociologist, is persons
who act and who give reality content and meaning by setting
themselves into relation with other persons and with specific social
and cultural contexts. In such a science it is principally by
interpreting the intentions behind actions, and by relating actions
to various complexes of meaning, that we can identify the causal
mechanisms that produce actions and patterns of action. Weber does
regard intentional explanation as distinct from causal explanation,
but rather as form of it. Causal explanation is a matter of
understanding concrete human action terms of its motives (Weber
1949:52, 72 1975:186, 197, 216; 1978:4; see also Goodman 1975; Hekman
1979; Keal and Urry 1975; Oakes 1975; Turner & Factor 1981).

Those
who view the painstaking labor of causally understanding historical
reality as of secondary importance can disregard it, but it is
impossible to supplant it by any type of 'teleology'. From our
viewpoint, 'purpose" is the conception of an effect which
becomes a cause of an action. Since we take into account every cause
which produces or can produce a significant effect, we also consider
this one (Weber 1949:83).

The
question whether motives can be regarded as externally related to
actions--a question that has been at the centre of the debate
concerning the applicability of causal explanation in social science,
and that has led certain researchers to advocate an intentional
explanatory model basically diverging from the causal one--does not
appear to constitute any sort of problem for Weber. Intentionality is
regarded as one of various causal processes jointly contributing to
the production of a certain action and its effects (Weber 1978:11 and 1949:83).

2.3.
Causality as quantifiable regularities or qualitative connections
and processes

Weber,
like for instance Hume and also the critical realists, discusses the
concept of causality in relation to two ideas regarding its import:
(1) 'the idea of an effect, the idea of a dynamic bond . . .
between phenomena qualitatively different from one another', and (2)
'the idea of subordination to rules' (Weber 1975:195; cf. e.g.
Hume 1966; Harré 1986). The purpose of causal explanation is
to identify particular concrete causal relationships between
individual affected and effective phenomena (Weber 1949, 1975:196).
Weber focuses chiefly on the import of these relations, on how
and through which processes a certain influence comes about, and
on how concrete phenomena have been produced out

[end
of page 110]

of
the past. Generalizations in terms of statistical correlations
cannot replace an interpretive understanding of the causal properties
that explain a certain action:

Suppose
that somehow an empirical-statistical demonstration of the strictest
sort is produced, showing that all men everywhere who have been
placed in a certain situation have invariably reacted in the same way
and to the same extent. Suppose that whenever this situation is
experimentally reproduced, the same reaction invariably follows.
Which is to say: suppose that this reaction is, in the most literal
sense of the word, 'calculable'. Such a demonstration would not bring
us a single step closer to the interpretation' of this reaction. By
itself, such a demonstration would contribute absolutely nothing to
the project of 'understanding' 'why' this reaction ever occurred and
moreover, 'why' it invariably occurs in the same way' (Weber
1975:128, my emphasis).

This
view of causal explanation of social action implies a criticism of
the tendency within positivism to regard causality as primarily a
question of empirical correlations between quantified variables, and
the idea that the goal of science is to establish
generalization/laws. Causality is a question of properties/qualities
which bind the effect to the cause, i.e. what Hume, through his
notion of empirical regularity, denied that we can arrive at
knowledge of (Hume 1966:63). and which is all too often ignored in
positivist variable-oriented research (Outhwaite 1987:102). As
Manicas (1987: 130) points out: 'For Weber the scientific
investigation begins only after these correlations have been
established.' Quantified correlations can be a starting-point for a
causal analysis in the sense that they bring into focus the processes
that are then to be investigated.

Concurrently
with the shift in Weber's focus from economic, social and cultural
history to what can be described as more purely sociology, there
occurs a certain change in his evaluation of empirical regularities
as a goal of causal-explanatory science. Assuredly, sociology is
largely based on the same concrete processes, intentional actions and
cultural meanings as history, but sociology is concerned with
'typical action', and 'seeks to formulate type concepts and
generalized uniformities of empirical process' (Weber 1978:19). In
Economy and Society Weber differentiates between adequate on the
level of meaning and causally adequate. The first of these refers to
the content of the relations between the specific context of meaning
in which an action is embedded, the import that the actor ascribes to
this context, the actor's motive and the act itself. Causally
adequate, on the other hand, refers to the probability that a certain
specific event will always be followed by a certain other specific
event. These two types of adequacy represent two types of
Sociological knowledge which presuppose and fructify each other.

2.4.
Contextuality, abstraction and empirical generalization

Weber's
methodological reasoning represents the taking of a particular
attitude to the question of the relationship between contextuality,
abstraction and empirical generalization, a question that permeates
both the methodological conflicts in which Weber was involved and the
similar conflicts that have taken place during the present century.
The starting-point for his positions--as they are formulated in,
principally, the early methodological writings--is a notion of
reality as consisting of an infinitely manifold and inexhaustible
course of empirical and individual phenomena. The standpoint Weber
develops--a standpoint influenced by neo-Kantianism--involves a
repudiation of a number of possible ways of handling this complex
context. First, there is a rejection of the radical contextualism
where the aim is to capture a part of reality in its total
manifoldness without the aid of any conceptual framework: '. . . an
exhaustive causal investigation of any concrete phenomenon in its
full reality is not only practically impossible--it is simply
nonsense' (Weber 1949:78). Second, there is a rejection of the
homological approach, of the endeavour to formulate general laws on
the basis of which it would be possible to deduce the concrete causal
relations, this chiefly because the universal concepts will be devoid
of content and meaning, without roots in concrete reality. Third, by
taking as the goal of causal-explanatory science the achievement

[end
of page 111]

of
knowledge of the individual concrete configuration of reality, Weber
is rejecting a science that through concept formation seeks to
uncover abstract non-observable essential structures and processes
which operate behind the stream of events in reality (Weber 1975:56,
64, 66; see also Outhwaite 1983; Manicas 1987).

Influenced
by Rickert and the concept of Wertbeziehung, Weber asserts that it
is the researcher's socially and culturally determined values,
notions of what is of importance, that constitute the necessary
criteria for the selection from the unstructured empirical reality.
This neo-Kantian position leads to a repudiation of the idea of
value-neutral knowledge. However, explicitly defined and justified
criteria for focusing on partial causal relationships form at the
same time the basis for objectivity--or rather intersubjectivity--in
science. With a certain fixed and common perspective regarding the
object of investigation, researchers can compare and evaluate their
results (see e.g. Weber 1975:124 and 1949:81; see also e.g. Eliaeson
1982 and 1990b; Turner & Factor 1981., Turner 1990).

The
core of the method that Weber advocates for arriving at causal
explanations of social actions is rational interpretation, which in
brief is a matter of reconstructing a context of meaning for the
purpose of understanding why persons act as they do. Meaningful
actions are explained by being set in relation to the categories ends
and means, and at the same time to the meanings they have for the
agent, meanings in the form of socially and culturally determined
motives for action. Such understanding and explanation is not to be
attained by way of introspection or empathy but first and foremost by
way of analysis of the social and cultural contexts in which people
act (Weber 1949:69, 72, 83; 1975:181, 194 and 1978:4; see also Hekman
1979; Jacobs 1990; Oakes 1975). Weber's methodology is much more
sensitive to the processes of interpretation, and to different
causally significant properties of socio-cultural contexts, than the
mainstream variable-oriented sociology (cf. Blumer 1956; Ragin 1987),
but transcends at the same time the intuitionist and psychologizing
understanding represented by Dilthey (Eliaeson 1982, 1990a; Jacobs
1990; Goodman 1975).[5]
He repudiates the tendency to subjectivism that is to be found in a
method geared to empathy and the reproduction of immediate
experience, and he emphasizes that also interpretations of contexts
of meaning have to be verified, have to be valid and objective, or
rather intersubjective in the sense that others understand the
specific circumstances in the same way (see e.g. Weber 1975:148. 179;
see also Turner 1986:180). This is at the same time a point with
regard to which there has been a great deal of misunderstanding of Weber.[6]

Concept
formation (abstraction) has a central role in Weber's causal
explanatory methodology. If we are to be able to differentiate
between what is causally relevant and what is not, then our
interpretation must be conceptually articulated. Since causal
explanations concern substantial relations, meanings and qualities,
and not correlations between quantifiable phenomena, the concepts
must also be rich in meaning, and thereby relatively limited in
extension (Weber 1975:56-65, see also Manicas 1987).

Through
the concept of the ideal type Weber indicates the importance of
constructing idealized abstract contexts of meaning. This ideal type
is an expression of how persons would act if they were to act
rationally in relation to a certain goal in a certain situation. Not
that this means that Weber took it that persons do always act
rationally--quite the contrary. The ideal type is a heuristic
artificial construction, an aid (and not a goal in itself) in the
discovering of causal relations. The chief function of concepts is to
make clear the distinctive concrete empirical character of actions,
partly by directing attention towards deviations from the idealized
pattern of action (Weber 1975:189, 1949:90, 1978:9, 21; see also e.g.
Eliaeson 1982; Jacobs 1990). This view of conceptualization rejects
empiricism, homological positivism and conceptual realism in favour
of a nominalism influenced by neo-Kantianism. At the same time as
Weber clearly points out that knowledge of quantitative correlations
and empirical generalizations is not the goal of causal explanations, he

[end
of page 112]

emphasizes
the importance of such knowledge as a means for determining the
causal significance of a concrete relation, and as a means in concept
formation (Weber 1975:63, 195 and 1977; see also Salomon 1934).
Rational interpretation, adequate on the level of meaning and
causally adequate, is based on knowledge of the result that we
generally expect a meaningful action to have. It is not, though, a
matter of nomological regularities, but of either common-sense
expectations or formalized probabilistic regularities (Weber 1977:127
and 1975:171; see also Turner 1986; Turner & Factor 1981).
However, the fundamental problem of distinguishing causal relations
from statistical correlations cannot be solved by replacing
deterministic/nomological regularities with probabilistic
regularities. Instead it demands knowledge about the content of the
relations and generative processes. Perhaps this conviction is the
most important difference between Weber's view of causality and the
one held by many of his contemporaries.

Weber's
view of causality involves him in a position regarding one of the
central issues in the German Methodenstreit--the issue of the
relation between natural and social science (Oakes 1975:19)--which
diverges both from the unified science of the positivists and from
the intuitionists' (e.g. Dilthey's) emphasis on a specific
non-causally-explanatory social-scientific methdology. Weber's view
of the relationship between social science and natural science is
complicated and is capable of being interpreted in several ways. Here
I shall be devoting attention only to a number of ways in which it
diverges from common present-day notions.

More
or less directly aiming at the intuitionists of the time, who
maintained that social science could not be causally explanatory
inasmuch as it had to do with complex and non-calculable
unpredictable human actions, Weber maintains the following: The
explanation of intentional action diverges from explanations in
natural science, but not in such a way as to make the processes of
nature generally easier to explain or more predictable. Since
interpretive understanding makes it possible to identify the motives
behind actions and the specific context of meaning in which the
actions are embedded, the social scientist can identify the processes
that link cause and effect. In Weber's view this has no equivalent in
natural science, a science that is obliged to have recourse to
empirical generalizations. Another thing in this connection, says
Weber, is that actions are if anything more calculable than events in
nature and that nature is at least as manifold and complex as social
reality. The repudiation of a homological social science is a
consequence of the interest in meaningful actions and substantial
causal, relations, and not a consequence of people's actions being in
principle more difficult to capture in general laws than inanimate
nature (Weber 1975:96, 120-127, 191, 216; see also Hekman 1979.,
Goodman 1975; Manicas 1987). Hekman catches Weber's position well in
the following words:

The
modern critics claim that causal analysis is inappropriate to the
social sciences because these sciences must deal with human action as
meaningful. Weber's theory of causality, however. is rooted in the
assumption that the social sciences are distinct from the natural
sciences precisely because their subject matter is meaningful action
(Hekman 1979:67).

2.5.
The application of causal explanation in The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism

A
number of researchers have argued that there is crucial disparity
between Weber's explicitly formulated methodology and his applied
methodology (see Kolko 1959; Lloyd 1986; Turner 1981). When it comes,
however, to the treatment of the concept of causality in one of his
best-known empirical studies, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism, what strikes one is in fact the continuity and
agreement between formulated and applied methodology. Here are
applied the principles that were formulated in the methodological
writings that were penned at about the same time (1903-6). Just as
the methodological formulations change over time, so also does the
direction of his applied research, but this we shall not go into
here. In The Protestant Ethic Weber takes as his
starting-point certain general patterns--correlations between
occupation and

[end
of page 113]

religion,
and between high economic development and the breakthrough of
Protestantism. These quantitative correlations are not used for
giving explanations but for formulating the problem on which
the study is then to focus, namely what causal processes--what
effective forces--lie behind the correlations (Weber 1976:35, 68).

A
distinctive feature of Weber's procedure is that he does not seek
the causal explanations--the effective forces--by breaking down the
original variables in order to find new correlations, nor through
empathy or introspection. Instead he performs a contextual
interpretive analysis, and constructs abstract ideal types, for the
purpose of reconstructing certain complexes of meanings and motives.
Intentional action is the core of causal explanation in The
Protestant Ethic. Protestantism acted as a causal force in that
it influenced the context of meanings affecting the motives of
workers, businessmen and entrepreneurs--motives which in turn gave
rise to patterns of action, a life-style, fostering the rise of
capitalism (Weber 1976, e.g. pp. 153, 170; see also e.g. Keat &
Urry 1975:149).

When
it comes to Weber's repudiation of the empiricist concept of
causality it is important to note that the causal explanations in The
Protestant Ethic focus on substantial internal relations. It is
not relations between distinct and independent objects that are
studied, but how one phenomenon comes out of another, how
certain motives, certain ideas concerning work and wealth, grow up
out of a certain sociocultural context (Weber 1976:68, 180).

There
has been extensive discussion concerning to what extent Weber
employs a monocausal deterministic perspective--looks upon the
Protestant ethic as the causal factor--and thereby repudiates
any effect of other factors on the specific development of capitalism
(see e.g. Kolko 1959; Warner 1973). Weber at more than one point
rejects the idea (Weber 1976:89, 183). Whilst it is true that Weber
lays the main emphasis on identifying the causal properties of the
Protestant ethic, at the same time he asserts the important role
played by the legal system, the accumulation of capital, the division
of labour, etc., in the development of the specific form of
capitalism--and of the economic rationality--that appears in Western
society. A reasonable interpretation is that Weber, on the basis of
his ontological view, saw various conditions (cultural, social,
political, material and psychological) as effective tendencies that
reinforced or neutralized one another in a complex interplay (see
Weber 1976, e.g. pp. 26, 91, 174). It is also important to remember
the fact that abstraction in terms of isolation is one of the
central aspects of Weber's causal explanatory methodology.

Furthermore--and
this is also completely central with regard to the import and
direction of a causal-explanatory social science--Weber's principal
ambition was in any case not to determine how large a significance
Protestantism had for the development of capitalism, how large a proportion
(in quantitative terms) of the causal influence was to be ascribed to
this particular factor. His ambition was instead to, on the one hand,
demonstrate that it had been of crucial importance in respect
of the emergence of the specific form of rationality in question--to
demonstrate, that is, that this part of history would here have taken
another shape if what he designates the Protestant ethic had not had
an influence on the way persons acted--and, on the other hand (and
perhaps chiefly), to identify how this influence came about,
i.e. to arrive at knowledge of the content of the causal processes
(see Weber 1976:183., Turner 1986:201).

3.
Critical realism and the development of a generative concept of causality

The
most important scientific-philosophical contributions to critical
realism, and to the generative view of causality that has emerged
within this tradition, have come from Rom Harré and Roy
Bhaskar (see e.g. Bhaskar 1978a, b, 1979, 1989, 1990; Harré
1979, 1986; Harré & Secord 1972; Harré & Madden
1975). During the 1970s and 1980s the generative view has been
developed and applied by philosophers of science, sociologists,
psychologists, economic

[end
of page 114]

and
social historians and geographers (see e.g. Keat & Urry 1975;
Layder 1990, Lloyd 1986; Manicas 1987., Outhwaite 1987, 1990; Sayer
1984, 1989., Shotter 1973, Urry 1985). In the following account I
shall not be going into the internal debate in critical realism, but
shall concentrate instead on the overall contribution of a number of
central figures to an anti-positivist causal theory.[7]

The
interest in explaining social actions is common to the critical
realists. A core concept is causal powers, focusing on the
structuration of capacities to act and bring about change in reality.
The theories and perspectives that have been developed include
underlying processes on different levels: the development of
personality, self-consciousness and habits (Harré 1979;
Harré, Clarke & De Carlo 1985; Shotter 1973),
intentionality and the processes whereby human beings reflect on
their situation and develop ambitions and motives for action (Bhaskar
1978a, b. Isaac 1990; Outhwaite 1987), and the relations between
social actions and properties of social situational contexts (Layder
1990), of social orders (Harré 1979; Harré, Clarke &
De Carlo 1985), and of relatively enduring social structures
(Bhaskar 1978a, 1979; Layder 1990; PatomAki 1991). In relation to the
concept of causal powers a number of theorists have attempted to
clarify the relation between social structure and intentional action
(see e.g. Layder 1985; Patomiiki 1991). Bhaskar, for example, whose
philosophy of science and view of social science are strongly rooted
in the Marxist tradition, argues in favour of a transformational
model of social activity. Social actions are regarded as the
reproduction and transformation of practices and structures that are
relatively enduring and already exist for the individual. But
individuals are not passive conveyors of roles and structures. They
possess causal powers, capacities for bringing about change in
reality, this through conscious and intentional activities (Bhaskar 1978a).

These
theoretical starting-points are not in themselves particularly
original. What is new and fruitful is that they are set in relation
to a theory of causality that can include this research object.

3.1.
A dialectical perspective

The
basic standpoint of critical realism can to a large extent be
regarded as representing aspects of a dialectical philosophy of
science. The dialectic perspective, which is perhaps expressed in its
clearest form in the works of Bhaskar, influences both the notion of
what objects of study are proper to social science and the
epistemological and methodological guidelines.

Social
reality, like nature, is regarded as a changeable, complex and open
system, consisting of causally efficacious mechanisms in interaction
(Bhaskar 1978a, 1989; Outhwaite 1987). There is a sharp rejection of,
on the one hand, the Humean mechanical and atomistic ontology, and
the view of society as a 'mass of separable events', a view on which
positivism is considered to rest, and, on the other hand, the notion
of reality as constituted by subjective interpretations and meanings
(Bhaskar 1978a, b; Harré & Madden 1975; Sayer 1984).

The
generative theory of causality implies a fundamental criticism of
the succession view of causality, i.e. causality as a question of
events following one another with a certain regularity, and of the
idea that causal explanations can be expressed in the form of general
empirical laws. The essence of causal analysis is instead the
elucidation of the processes that generate the objects, events and
actions we seek to explain. Things, mental processes, social
relations and structures are taken to have causal power, a potential
for bringing about change; not that this is a question, though, of
some mystical independently existent power--it resides in properties
of the things and relations themselves. Causes are neither events nor
objects but properties. These properties are effective/productive and
lie behind the sequences of events and constant changes that can be
observed in the real world (Bhaskar 1978b, 1989; Harré &
Madden 1975; Keat & Urry 1975; Outhwaite 1987; Sayer 1984).

A
central feature of the dialectical perspective is the notion of reality
as stratified. Concrete events and abstract causal powers are
looked upon as two levels of reality--related, but not reducible, to
each other. The abstract level is not associated with heuristic
concepts but is taken as capturing

[end
of page 115]

actually
existing causal powers relatively autonomous in relation to the
concrete complex context they operate in (Bhaskar 1989 and 1978b;
Outhwaite 1987; Sayer 1984). Bhaskar goes a step further and says
that empiricism's concentration on observations of sequences of
events in fact represents a double reduction which brings
together--mixes up--three levels: the real (properties and
mechanisms), the actual (the events that are produced) and the
empirical (observations of events).

The
difference in level, the 'ontological gap', is also formulated as
the difference between 'natural necessity' and 'contingent
relations'. The operative properties that causal analysis attempts to
uncover exist by necessity relatively independent of their effects,
but the relations between these properties and the observable effects
are contingent inasmuch as they are dependent on the specific context
that we are studying (Bhaskar 1978b. Keat & Urry 1975; Outhwaite
1987; Sayer 1984).

This
being the perspective, causality has to be analysed in terms of
tendencies. These tendencies are always manifested in open systems,
in a complex interaction with other tendencies. On the concrete level
the causal powers are never to be found expressed in their purity but
are always reinforced. modified or neutralized by other powers, and
it is the context in which they operate that determines the specific
effects. The force of gravity is assumed to exist even though we
cannot observe its effect on the stationary objects that surround us
in space (Outhwaite 1987), and certain social norm structures exist
even though we may observe actions that infringe them.

The
dialectical generative concept of causality implies a crucial
distinction between causal explanation and empirical prediction.
Prediction has to do with empirical regularities which--no matter how
general they are--constitute contextually dependent patterns of
events and not causal powers (Keat & Urry 1975:5; Manicas
1989:187, 191). Bhaskar (1978b, 1989) and Sayer (1984) argue that
regularities are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of causality.

Most
critical realists regard motives and intentions as central causal
mechanisms in social-scientific research: intentions, developed
within a sociocultural framework, have a productive power that plays
its part in causing the persons to act as they do (see e.g. Bhaskar
1989; Outhwaite 1987, 1990; Sayer 1984). That motives and actions are internally
related, and that thus the empiricist requirement of logical
independence remains unfulfilled, does not constitute for the
realists the problem that it has constituted for the positivists and
intentionalists. On the contrary, the causal-explanatory research has
to take into consideration the internally related nature of social
actions (Layder 1990; Sayer 1984).

Internal
relatedness is defined in the following illuminating way by Patomdki
(1991:224, based on Bhaskar 1979): 'A relation R(ab) is internal if
and only if a would not be what it essentially is unless b is related
to it in the way that it is'. Internal relatedness is more than a
question of formal logical definitions. The reconstruction of the
mechanisms and structures whereby social entities are interwoven--of
how they are constituted in relation to one another--can in fact be
seen as the very essence of a causal-explanatory social science. How
causal properties bring about changes is not in the first place a
question of how distinct and separate objects or phenomena influence
the relative occurrence of one another, but of how the effect issues
from the cause (cf. Harré 1986; Outhwaite 1987; Pawson 1988;
Sayer 1984).

3.2.
Methodological implications

It
seems to me that there are certain overall methodological (but on
the other hand not concretely methodical) implications of the
generative and realistic view of causality--ones of the utmost
importance for social science. Let me conclude with a few all-round
comments on this.

A
causal analysis of social action should strive for a methodology
permeated by a continuous interplay of conceptualization/theory
construction and contextualization. These two fructify each other but
also lead to two completely different types of knowledge, each a goal
for science. Conceptualization and theory construction refer to a
process whereby we abstract from context-dependent data in an
endeavour to capture the not-directly-observable causal mechanisms
and structures that generate observable phenomena and events. The
search for hidden causes is nothing metaphysical or less than
scientific but a fundamental aspect of causal analysis of social
actions, which calls for constructions of concepts and theories
(Bhaskar 1978a). Theories are seen here neither as ordering
frameworks in the form of models of relations between independent and
dependent variables, nor as empirical generalizations. As Keat &
Urry (1975:35) put it, the making of generalizations--going from some
to all--is 'not a move from observables to unobservable structures
and mechanisms which explain them' (see also Manicas 1989.. Sayer 1984).

The
concrete import and effects of causal mechanisms are always related
to the open complex context in which they operate, whereby it becomes
of central importance in social science to reconstruct the relevant
social, temporal and spatial context, and to study--guided by
concepts and theories--how certain causal mechanisms are expressed in
such a context, and furthermore to compare the import and effects of
the mechanisms in different contexts. Empirical generalizations are
always conditional, and dependent on how generally occurring the
context in question is. It is because social contexts are so various,
complex and changeable that it is difficult to make exact
predictions, not because of lack of causality.

Causal-explanatory
research calls for quantitative and qualitative strategies that are
much more sensitive to complex and changeable contexts than
mainstream variable-oriented research (cf. Lieberson 1985; Ragin
1987; Pawson 1988; Sayer 1984).[8]
Instead of there being an attempt to emulate the perfect
quasi-experimental situation by statistically controlling traditional
sociological variables (sex, age, income, etc.), research has to be
directed towards constructing--through deep knowledge of
contexts--relevant objects of comparison, thereby creating a basis
for counterfactual argument (Pawson 1988; Sayer 1984).

Interpretive
analysis and causal analysis appear here not as opposed but as
inter-dependent (Outhwaite 1987:60; Sayer 1984: 37, 104, 115).
Hermeneutically oriented research practice has much to offer a
contextualizing approach. It is a question of a process whereby we
can constantly deepen, develop and revise our knowledge of different
social contexts--which presupposes openness and sensitivity in the
face of new aspects and meanings. The interpretation and
understanding of the meaning with which persons invest different
situations and actions becomes of central significance to causal
explanations of social actions. Variable-oriented/extensive
research--characterized by the study, under statistical control, of
correlations between a limited number of variables with unequivocal,
unchangeable and predefined properties (in the form of variable
values)--provides important knowledge of descriptive general
empirical correlations. Sayer (1984) emphasizes, however, that
knowledge regarding substantial internal relations, regarding the
meanings of social properties and regarding how these properties
change over time and in different contexts, calls for more intensive
comparative research strategies. These strategies are of course not
new--quite the contrary (see e.g. Glaser & Strauss 1967; Layder
1982). Paradoxically enough, however, they have been developed and
practised chiefly in research that has not been directed towards
causal explanation.

4.
Concluding remarks

The
covering law theory (likewise the succession theory) of causality
has not been successful when it comes to causal explanations of
social actions (see e.g. Bhaskar 1978a; Giddens 1984; Turner 1987). I
have here taken up what I regard as two fruitful alternatives to this
very influential notion of causality. The fact that the discussion
within Scandinavian social science has been strongly influenced by
the polarization between positivism and hermeneutics has meant that
such contributions have remained in the background or have been
interpreted in the light of polarizing perspective on understanding
and explanation.[9]
Hellenius (1990), for instance, looks upon critical realism as an
expression of 'impure crossing' and an

[end
of page 117]

example
of how 'the positivism debate' has been 'muddied' (pp. 36 and 68,
translation my own).

Some
of the control components of the contributions from Weber and
critical realism are set out--in such a way as to draw attention to
similarities and differences between them--in Table 1.

I
think many social scientists today would agree that social reality
must in principle be regarded as a constantly changing complex
totality made up of interwoven, and partly non-observable, effective
and affected social properties and processes on different levels. Yet
there is often a disregard of this in concrete causal-explanatory
research practice. Even though, for instance, the mixing up of
analysis of variations with causal analysis has long been criticized,
a crucial proportion of the work in social science directed towards
causal explanation still has to do with precisely the production of
statistical correlations between observable and externally related
phenomena (Lieberson 1985., Manicas 1989; Turner 1987).

Weber
and the critical realists show the way to a generative view of
causality. The causal explanation of social action is to be found in
social properties and meanings operating in different contexts, and
in the processes whereby social phenomena are produced out of
preexisting conditions, but not in conjunction of events. They also
show the way to methodologies where contextualization and
conceptualization are central, indispensable and interrelated parts
of the search for causal explanations. It is at the same time in the
view of concept formation that we find the perhaps most essential
difference between Weber and critical realism. With the latter comes
a methodology geared to attempting to uncover real existing
structures and causal mechanisms by going behind what is directly
observable, this through empirically based abstraction and generation
of theory. In the Weberian methodology, on the other hand, concept
formation represents idealizations, artificial constructions, whose
purpose is to lead the way to the discovery of causal relations
between concrete empirical and individual phenomena.

Notes

1
Here I am consciously avoiding going into the protracted and
wide-ranging debate concerning the notion of causality held by the
positivists. and all the variants and modifications that have been
set forth. I content myself instead with formulating these--as I see
it--fundamental starting-points for the debate.

2
Weber's writings concerning methodology were prompted largely by the
current--first and foremost German--debate on the subject (Eliaeson
1990a); they are polemical essays rather than systematic
scientific-philosophical works, and they contain certain assertions
and arguments that are neither consistent over time nor given precise
definition and subjected to systematic discussion (Outhwaite 1983;
Tenbruck 1980; Turner 1986). But what in the first place the critical
realists represent is precisely a scientific-philosophical current,
one which was to be further developed about 70 years later in Britain
and the USA.

3
It goes without saying that Weber and critical realism do not offer
the only examples. For instance Ricocur (1988), from within the
framework of the hermeneutic tradition, has criticized for example
Dilthey and has argued for a dialectical perspective eliminating the
dualism of understanding/explanation. Bunge (1959) has formulated
some important but not very influential ontological and
methodological starting-points for a generative causal-explanatory
science, first and foremost directed towards the uncovering of the
processes and causal powers whereby things in reality are produced.

4
The account below is chiefly based on three works that are completely
central in respect of Weber's explicit discussion of methodology: the
essay Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy which
came out in 1904; Roscher and Knies: The Logical Problems of
Historical Economics, which was published in parts during the
period 1903-6 in Jahrbuch fur Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft;
and the first part of Economy and Society. which was a
reworking of the essay Uber einige Kategorien der Verstehenden Soziologie
from 1913. In order to illustrate Weber's methodology in its
application I also focus on The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,
the first part of which came out in 1904 (i.e. the same year as the
above-mentioned essay on objectivity). In addition the
interpretations of these works are set in relation to relevant
secondary literature. For a presentation of Weber's writings on
methodology, see e.g. Eliaeson (1982) and Hughes (1977).

5
According to Outhwaite (1975) Dilthey originally employed an
individualistic and psychological perspective. where the focus was on
mental processes, but then moved increasingly further away from this
perspective in favour of (as Outhwaite puts it) 'the hermeneutic
interpretation of cultural products and conceptual structures' ( p. 26).

6
Oakes writes: 'It would be difficult to exaggerate the extent to
which Weber has becn misunderstood on this point. Weber's
methodology--so the conventional scholarly wisdom goes--rests upon a
commitment to some mysterious, unobservable. unveriflable species of
intuition or empathy which he sees as a reliable method for
establishing conclusions and solving problems in sociocultural
science' (Oakes 1975:29). A tendency to such a dubious interpretation
of the Verstchen methodology is to be found in Hughes & Mansson
(1988). who regard Verstchen as: 'a form of analysis emphasising
empathetic understanding'. They write further: 'Weber's methodology
means quite simply that the social scientist should become involved
in the acting individuals, and through introspection and empathy
attempt to understand the contexts of meaning that serve as driving
forces for their individual actions when they orient themselves in
respect of other individuals' ( pp. 141 and 143. my translation).

7
Critical realism is not in the first place a tradition associated
with a certain perspective regarding the old ontological and
epistemological discussion about realism vs nominalism, but is
characterized chiefly by its development of the generative view of
causality in opposition to the empiricist and positivist concept of
it (Outhwaite 1987). This concept of causality implies at the same
time a realist ontology and epistemology based on the conviction that
science shall seek to uncover processes and mechanisms that are
actually existing but not directly observable. Regarding the debate
within critical realism, see e.g. the discussion that has been going
on for two decades in the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour.

8
Sayer (1984) argues for the importance of the intensive/qualitative
methods in respect of causal-explanatory research, whilst Pawson
(1988) has chiefly contributed to the development of a more
quantifying research, largely inspired by critical realism.

9
Critical realism has for instance been touched upon only by a few
social scientists in Sweden (Guliberg 1984; Karisson et al. 1991 ).
Finnish social scientists, on the other hand, have also taken part in
the international discussion (see e.g. Patomjki 1991).